Success! XFX R9 290 flashed to Asus R9 290X!

ccityinstaller said:
Really? It seemed to hold quite true for the 79XX series cards..Every beast O/C'ing 7950 out there had an insanely high ASIC score (mine was 91.6% and my core was O/C'd 50.5% on water)...Soooo it means nothing? I guess I will find out when I get my 290's max O/C dialed in:p...
Click to expand...

To quote Mr Baumann-

Dave Baumann said:
ASIC "quality" is a misnomer propobated by GPU-z reading a register and not really knowing what it results in. It is even more meaningless with the binning mechanism of Hawaii.
Click to expand...
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1808073&postcount=2130
 
Porter_ said:
overclocks for 7970's were all over the place when it came to ASIC scores.
Click to expand...

I never owned a 7970 myself, but I setup quite a few of them for others in gaming rigs, and most of the higher AISC cards seemed to clock better at a given voltage..Perhaps that should have been my point..I am not saying I am an expert on the matter, I am FAR from it..
 
ccityinstaller said:
I never owned a 7970 myself, but I setup quite a few of them for others in gaming rigs, and most of the higher AISC cards seemed to clock better at a given voltage..Perhaps that should have been my point..I am not saying I am an expert on the matter, I am FAR from it..
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm fairly certain that was the trend.

Higher ASIC -> Same OC as lower ASIC with less voltage.

But power consumption ends up being about the same on both, despite voltage differences. So whats it really matter? Longevity, maybe?
 
Good thread. My XFX 290 from newegg should be here next week with my GELID REV.2 Icy Vision cooler. 475$ for what I hope is a 290X, cooler and quite card with BF4. Not bad at all :)
 
http://www.techpowerup.com/193573/techpowerup-announces-gpu-z-0-7-4.html


I'm a believer of the importance of high ASIC score. My best HD7950 had high ASIC score and it is super fast compared to others and most people that I have seen with high ASIC scores get higher over clocks.


The GPU-Z link at the top of my post is for the latest GPU-Z which supports 290 series. I have been seeing many 70% scores and no 80% so far and the better the ASiC the better the over clocking experience. I think the ASIC score tool is great and it makes perfect sense to me. A leaky conductor is an inferior conductor.... Best conductors don't leak.
 
Powercolor 290 OC unlocked with XFX 290x BIOS.
2816 shaders reported, Heaven 3.0 reports 5% higher performance with stock cooler and clocks.
AC Xtreme III cooler on the way, hopefully it can be pushed hard :D
 
ontariotl said:
Actually Asus GPU tweak puts the default core voltage at 1.25V as you can see in the screenshot. I only add .50 volts on top of that. However, I'm just leaving it at default for testing.

Click to expand...

The Asus tool might not be optimising the voltage.
I've just unlocked my card to a 290x and while running Heaven 4.0, GPUz reports 1.148V VDDC at default clocks (1000/1250), no throttling, GPU use maxed.

Pisser is, I cant run Heaven 4.0 full screen as it goes black and locks the PC up.
I had a "nightmare" installing the drivers with Comodo firewall as well.
AMD still have some distance to go with their drivers!
 
ontariotl said:
Reposting this again as I will paste the post I have in the other forum. Sorry Kyle.

Ok, I'll probably get trolled by this thread as BS, but I read a few posts on other forums and someone posted they flashed their XFX R9 290 card to an Asus 290X bios and unlocked all their shaders. Well since I own two XFX 290 cards which I have already installed waterblocks and tested against my old TriSli on another forum. and with the bios switch on reference card, I thought what the hell! I'll try it myself.

Here's what I got.

Screenshot of the 290 pre flash



Screenshot of the 290 post flash



Now I did have to flash the second card again as GPU-Z was showing an anomaly but after successful second flash it reported just like the first card. I have rebooted and restarted gpu-z many times and so far it has reported the same amount over and over again. I could be dreaming but this could very well be a reality that I now have a 290X in xfire!

So of course the next step is to do some testing.....here are my results so far. Both pre flash and post flash are clocked the same (1100Mhz/1300Mhz mem so far) What I have noticed though is under the Asus bios I had to up the voltage to 1.3 for it to run successfully at this speed under heaven benchmark, yet there was no voltage bump needed with the 290 bios.

Valley Benchmark

Xfx R9 290 bios


Asus R9 290X bios



Heaven Benchmark (again, had to up the voltage to 1.3v for the Asus flash)

Xfx R9 290 bios


Asus R9 290X flash


Tomb Raider Max settings incl. Tress FX hair (no AA) 5760x1200

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 3.0 Max.fps 80 Avg. fps 66.3

Asus 290X bios flash xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 4.9 Max.fps 84 Avg. fps 69.7

Battlefield 4 Ultra settings Single Player(no AA) 5760x1200

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 49 Max.fps 103 Avg. fps 71.15

Asus 290X bios flash xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 44 Max.fps 117 Avg. fps 82.94


Looks like the 6950 to 6970 days could be back. However I take no responsibility for anyone screwing up their cards if they attempt this. I have also read that a few with Sapphire and other cards it didn't work, so who knows if all cards will be able to convert.
Click to expand...
CAn you link me to the article you used and which bios you used to flash. Also because these cards have 2 bios which can be toggled, are you flashing the the second and leaving the first one as stock(non uber mode)?
 
Nenu said:
The Asus tool might not be optimising the voltage.
I've just unlocked my card to a 290x and while running Heaven 4.0, GPUz reports 1.148V VDDC at default clocks (1000/1250), no throttling, GPU use maxed.

Pisser is, I cant run Heaven 4.0 full screen as it goes black and locks the PC up.
I had a "nightmare" installing the drivers with Comodo firewall as well.
AMD still have some distance to go with their drivers!
Click to expand...

Heaven did the same thing with locking up until I upped the voltage like I mentioned earlier.

AMD drivers are a pain to install, but Nvidia isn't far behind in issues too. I've had to reinstall windows 7 to just the nvidia driver to install even when using driver cleaner and every other option. So AMD is not the only one guilty of this.

I have to say that installing drivers this time from AMD was a better experience than I have in the past owning a 5870 or 5970. That was a nightmare when it came time to upgrading. Even 4870 was never an issue. I find Eyefinity easier to set up than it was with Surround gaming.

I will also say I'm very fortunate to not experience the black screen issue or any crashes. I've already had my fair share of issues of grey screen of death and cold bug from the 5800 series. AMD owes me a good experience for trying them again, and so far they have met and exceeded my expectations.
 
I just ordered 2 powercolors a few minutes ago. If this works I will be buying a 3rd powercolor, can not beat 3 290X's for the price of 3 290s. I hope 1300W will be good for 3.
 
ontariotl said:
Heaven did the same thing with locking up until I upped the voltage like I mentioned earlier.

AMD drivers are a pain to install, but Nvidia isn't far behind in issues too. I've had to reinstall windows 7 to just the nvidia driver to install even when using driver cleaner and every other option. So AMD is not the only one guilty of this.

I have to say that installing drivers this time from AMD was a better experience than I have in the past owning a 5870 or 5970. That was a nightmare when it came time to upgrading. Even 4870 was never an issue. I find Eyefinity easier to set up than it was with Surround gaming.

I will also say I'm very fortunate to not experience the black screen issue or any crashes. I've already had my fair share of issues of grey screen of death and cold bug from the 5800 series. AMD owes me a good experience for trying them again, and so far they have met and exceeded my expectations.
Click to expand...

Heh, our experiences are a bit different sadly.
I've taken the core up to 1080MHz where after a long test it did a driver reset, fully stable at 1070Mhz though, stock voltage.
Ram is also stable at 1400MHz.
So its not a lack of voltage causing the black screen at default clocks.

I've had a royal pita with both the 9.2 and 9.4 drivers.
Just got the Xtreme III installed and I cant properly test it as the Overdrive section of the driver wont let me change the power target.
Looking online, its extremely common.
I had such a hard time getting the 9.4 driver in that I dont dare install another unless it fixes the black screens and Overdrive at a minimum.

The Xtreme III is good though, max temp running Heaven 4.0 stabilised at 49 to 50C, stock clocks & volts.
Heaven doesnt throttle the clocks or GPU use, but nearly everything else I run does because I cant increase the power target.
Grr.
 
///AMG said:
I just ordered 2 powercolors a few minutes ago. If this works I will be buying a 3rd powercolor, can not beat 3 290X's for the price of 3 290s. I hope 1300W will be good for 3.
Click to expand...

I've just read that the latest batches of cards dont unlock.
It was stated that the cards produced in the first 38 weeks are the only ones that might unlock.
See if they have old stock before buying.

I read it toward the end of this thread
http://www.overclock.net/t/1443242/the-r9-290-290x-unlock-thread
Soz, its quite big.
It was at least page 90.
 
Nenu said:
I've just read that the latest batches of cards dont unlock.
It was stated that the cards produced in the first 38 weeks are the only ones that might unlock.
See if they have old stock before buying.

I read it toward the end of this thread
http://www.overclock.net/t/1443242/the-r9-290-290x-unlock-thread
Soz, its quite big.
It was at least page 90.
Click to expand...

Wow thats a bummer. Well guess we will see if I am lucky.

EDIT: Well I canceled my order twice because of this. I ended up deciding on 1 XFX and 1 Powercolor. No harm if neither does but the XFX comes with BF4.
 
Last edited:
Nenu said:
I've just read that the latest batches of cards dont unlock.
It was stated that the cards produced in the first 38 weeks are the only ones that might unlock.
See if they have old stock before buying.

I read it toward the end of this thread
http://www.overclock.net/t/1443242/the-r9-290-290x-unlock-thread
Soz, its quite big.
It was at least page 90.
Click to expand...

Sorry, that is retarded and makes no sense.
Week of production has no bearing on this ability, it is about the GPU bin that you are receiving.
 
Nenu said:
I've just read that the latest batches of cards dont unlock.
It was stated that the cards produced in the first 38 weeks are the only ones that might unlock.
See if they have old stock before buying.

I read it toward the end of this thread
http://www.overclock.net/t/1443242/the-r9-290-290x-unlock-thread
Soz, its quite big.
It was at least page 90.
Click to expand...

Sorry, that is retarded and makes no sense.
Week of production has no bearing on this ability, it is about the GPU bin that you are receiving.

Edit- Here is the link that tried to make me dumber.
 
:)
How does it not make sense?
They are no longer allowing the full Hawaii XT chips to seep into 290 cards.
Maybe because of the BIOS flashing they are gimping full 290x chips or because they can now fulfill all 290 orders with chips that are not good enough to be unlocked.
Maybe both?

Its deliberate.
 
Nenu said:
:)
How does it not make sense?
They are no longer allowing the full Hawaii XT chips to seep into 290 cards.
Maybe because of the BIOS flashing they are gimping full 290x chips or because they can now fulfill all 290 orders with chips that are not good enough to be unlocked.
Maybe both?

Its deliberate.
Click to expand...

Because the 38th week of production has no bearing on what bins of GPUs are shipped out with what bios...

An AIB could run out of 290 stock and ship 290x flashed as 290 next week...
 
AMD can give a directive.
Perhaps it is a figment of someones imagination, but someone said they complained to AMD about it and AMD said that 290s cannot be flashed to 290x.
They might be making sure of it now by gimping chips, or might be able to make sure of it now due to having enough chips that fail 290x validation.
 
In any case it's not true, because people have received week 40 chips that are unlockable. Also some Sapphire cards have started to show up unlockable. So it appears that it is actually getting more common, not less.
 
Forceman said:
In any case it's not true, because people have received week 40 chips that are unlockable. Also some Sapphire cards have started to show up unlockable. So it appears that it is actually getting more common, not less.
Click to expand...

Thats great news! If I can get both of them unlocked I think I wont be too greedy and I will actually buy a 290X so I can trifire. I just need to find some games I want to play or else it will just be a waste.
 
My saphire r9 290 battlefield 4 is a working 290x now after the flash.
And its not the only one, yesterday i succesfully flashed another one (the same card) at a friend´s house.



This is mine:

And my friend`s:


Both card are working perfectly, benchmarks before and after (with the same clocks) shown a 5-6% increase.
The cards were purchased in spain the past week.
 
Kamainae said:
My saphire r9 290 battlefield 4 is a working 290x now after the flash.
And its not the only one, yesterday i succesfully flashed another one (the same card) at a friend´s house.



This is mine:

And my friend`s:


Both card are working perfectly, benchmarks before and after (with the same clocks) shown a 5-6% increase.
The cards were purchased in spain the past week.
Click to expand...

What method did you use ? I have nearly the same identical card and would love to get 290X with BF4 :)
 
I would be really tempted to do this if I wasn't going to sell my 290 eventually. I guess I could just suck it up and keep a 290 and sell off the 290xs.

either way congrats to everyone that was successful, I remember unlocking my L-shaped memory 9500 to a 9700 and feeling like I won the lotto.
 
Just and update to this post. It's been past a month since I've completed this flash and so far I have had no issues whatsoever.

No artifacts, no issues with overclocking, no black screens, no crashes.
 
I flashed my XFX 290 to a 290x a few weeks ago... Is there a reason everyone is using the ASUS bios instead of the card manufacturer's bios? I uses the XFX 290x bios... and am just wondering if I am missing something by not flashing the ASUS bios everyone is using.
 
I havent tried the Asus BIOS yet, but from observation:
You can use the Asus clocking tools.
There is no real need for most people, Afterburner does most things you need.
Although it looks like the Asus tools let you set a specific voltage whereas Afterburner only lets you add +100mV to the base voltage.
You can set +200 and +300mV using Afterburner by running it with a command after the exe line.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top